nice work, kid
by hailingstars
Summary: When Peter gets serious injuries saving Tony's life, Tony wants to go back in time and prevent himself from meeting Peter to protect him from his influence. He expects to wind up in Queens. Instead he ends up at a Stark Expo.


The image of Peter Parker being crushed would be seared in Tony's memory forever.

He was sure of it. That wasn't the sort of moment that was easily forgotten. It was kind that stole breath, and literally had stolen Tony's breath. Being knocked aside by Spider-Man, using his full strength, was enough to send even Iron Man tumbling to the ground. He'd recovered quickly, but it hadn't been fast enough. He was on his feet and turned around too late to intervene, but it just enough time to watch a steel of pure metal debris crush his kid into the ground.

The earth went eerily silent as Tony stood with his heart thumping out of his chest, before the spell was broken and he was on top of the wreckage, digging through it, until he got to the bottom, until he got to Peter.

He was laid put on the ground, some of his limps at odd angles, and unquestionably broken. Just another victim of the Stark curse. Just another heartbreak that was completely Tony's fault.

Peter's hospital room was silent, too, besides the steady beeps of the medical equipment tracking his vitals and his ventilator. He couldn't breathe of his own, and every breath of Tony's after the accident felt stolen right from his lungs. It should've been Tony's life hanging in the balance, not Peter's, and if it wasn't Tony, wasn't for his own selfishness, the boy wouldn't be hooked up to machines and struggling to hang on to life.

He'd given him a highly weaponized suit. He'd given him permission, and encouragement, and in doing so, he wiped Peter Parker from the planet and took him away from his last living relative, a woman who'd already lost so much. Tony was a bad example, the very worst example a teenage boy could have, and he had no idea why he ever thought anything good could come out of tangling their lives together.

It was with resolve he stood from the chair next to the bed that held Peter's broken body. He knew how to fix this.

He took one last look at Peter Parker and left him alone, which is what he should've done in the first place.

Tony found Doctor Strange in his room. He didn't bother knocking, and walked in on him sitting cross-legged, hovering in midair, with his eyes shut. That wasn't even the weirdest item in his room, but Tony didn't dwell. He knew when he added him to the Avengers, when he started spending more and more time at the compound, he'd bring his oddities with him.

He was just hoping he brought one in particular.

"I'm busy. Go away."

"Yeah you're looking real swamped out right now," said Tony. "Listen I'm gonna need you pop out that time stone and give it a whirl."

"Which is it?" asked the wizards, his eyes still closed. "Ms. Potts or the boy?"

"What?"

"Well the only reason you'd be foolish enough to talk about time traveling is if the boy or your fiancée were in danger," said Strange. "Let me take a wild stab in the dark. You want to go back in time and prevent an injury."

"No," said Tony. "I need to go back in time and prevent myself from meeting Peter Parker."

Doctor Strange's eyes popped open. "Do you have any idea of what a change that big would do to Earth? To the universe as a whole?"

"As long as the change is Peter alive and unbroken, then I don't care."

The wizard floated to the ground with grace and stood up. Tony didn't quite care for the confidence he carried, or the way in which he was smirking, but to accomplish his mission, to save Peter and put the world back, he'd have to endure it. Maybe in this new universe Tony wouldn't know Strange, either.

"You want to go back to the moment you and Mr. Parker met for the first time."

"How many times are we gonna have to go over this?"

"Okay," said Strange.

The request was granted instantly.

He snapped his fingers, they whirled from reality, and into the past.

When they appeared in the past, Tony was sure Strange had screwed up. He wasn't able to voice that out loud, at least not in a way that could be heard over the screaming and chaos. A horde of wailing, scared people were running for their lives, from a building, and it was one Tony recognized immediately.

That the building, as much as the atmosphere and the panic, and the Expo logos on hats and on shirts. This was the Stark Expo. The one that Hammer crashed with his drones.

Tony and Strange stood off to the side as people ran past them, as they ran past them, and also, a small child who stayed completely still, turning in the other direction, staring down the drones. He was protected only by an Iron Man mask, and as the crowd thinned, Tony felt it again. That panic that jumped to his throat.

He stepped out, a few spaces away from Strange, and shouted, "Hey kid! Run! Get outta the way!"

The kid didn't move or acknowledge Tony at all. Just stared fearlessly at the oncoming danger. It reminded him of someone, but it couldn't be.

"He can't hear you," said Strange. "Or see you. We are silent observers. What? Did you really think I would let you screw up the timeline?"

"What's the point to this, then?" snapped Tony.

He turned his attention back to the boy. He was lifting his hand and igniting the light-up toy repulsor beam strapped it to when Tony saw himself from the past swoop down from the sky, shoot his own beam and blast the drone with the real one.

"Nice work, kid."

It wasn't until Tony watched himself fly away that he remembered, and it wasn't until he looked up and saw a very distressed May Parker hurrying across the concrete and towards the boy that he realized Strange wasn't as much of a screwup as he thought.

"Peter Benjamin Parker!"

May bent down to his level, put one hand on Peter's arm and lifted up his mask with the other. Peter was grinning underneath it. His smile was smaller, but also, somehow how identical to the teenage Peter Tony knew. There was a spark in his eyes.

"What were you thinking? Why would you run towards that thing? If you see something dangerous like that, you turn around and ran the other way."

"Aunt May," he said. He jumped up and pointed to the sky, where Iron Man had flown off. "That was so _awesome_! I just fought with Iron Man!"

Peter pulled the mask back down and started a performance with the toy hand repulsor beam. "I'm gonna be just like him with I grow up!"

Horror flashed across May Parker's face, and it was all-consuming, but short lived. It was replaced by a smile, then a laugh, as she watched Peter dramatically fight off invisible bad guys. Eventually she joined in, she pretended to be a villain, and they played together in the middle of all the explosions and danger, giggling.

Tony was certain he just witnessed the moment in which May realized she was going to have to let Peter be Peter, even if that meant he was selfless and brave and stupidly reckless. He was all those things on his own, without Tony's influence, and it was somehow right that even the past version of May passed along parenting tricks to him. It was a scary trick, but Tony was left with no option.

He couldn't erase himself from Peter's life without erasing Peter from the planet, and he felt a little guilty that he was relieved. Life without his Spider-Kid would certainly be dull.

"See. He was a moron even before he ever met you."

Tony glared at Doctor Strange and ordered him to take them back to the real world, so he could continue his campout in Peter's hospital room. There was a quick snap, then they were back, just as suddenly as they left.

* * *

"Hey kid," said Tony. He stood above Peter and held his hand. It was limp and lifeless, but he had to believe Peter could feel him there, could even hear him. Maybe, he could even understand. "I need you to open your eyes, okay?"

He was met with silence. It seemed to taunt him, but he ignored it and pressed forward.

"This isn't really the time to be stubborn, bud. Your aunt is on the way, and you know how she worries."

Still nothing but beeps from the machine, so Tony sighed, pulled up a chair and sat down. He did all that, and never let go of Peter's hand.

"I was thinking about the day we met today," said Tony. He pressed his thumb down on the back of Peter's hand and moved it back and forth. "And I figure, okay, now we're even, I saved you, you saved me, so now you gotta open those brown eyes."

He wanted to see it again. That spark he saw in young Peter's eyes after May pulled off his mask. He wished he knew him back then, as a child, and desperately wished that he would get to know him as an adult, that the fates that tied their lives together hadn't also destined his to end at age seventeen.

That wouldn't be fair. Not for someone for perfect, so pure.

"Pete, I – I love you," said Tony. The words didn't come naturally, not like they did with Pepper, but that didn't make them any less true.

And that was when the miracle happened. It was just the slightest twitch of one of his fingers, then a shift of his head. Tony watched his eyes as they struggled to open, and finally, they came fluttering open. Not all the way, but it was good enough for Tony.

"I love you too, Mr. Stark," said Peter, and despite his condition, his words did come naturally. "Why are you sad?"

Tony squeezed his hand. "I'm not sad. I'm perfect."

Peter's eyes blinked shut again, and he nodded off, still drugged out but alive despite being a bit broken. Tony kept holding his hand and kept thanking the fates for this unremovable gift of having Peter Parker in his life. He was unworthy, but he would worship it anyway.


End file.
